The Francis Crick Institute, London NW1 1AT, UK
Development. 2019 Nov 25;146(22):dev182154. doi: 10.1242/dev.182154.
The vertebrate spinal cord comprises multiple functionally distinct neuronal cell types arranged in characteristic positions. During development, these different types of neurons differentiate from transcriptionally distinct neural progenitors that are arrayed in discrete domains along the dorsal-ventral and anterior-posterior axes of the embryonic spinal cord. This organization arises in response to morphogen gradients acting upstream of a gene regulatory network, the architecture of which determines the spatial and temporal pattern of gene expression. In recent years, substantial progress has been made in deciphering the regulatory network that underlies the specification of distinct progenitor and neuronal cell identities. In this Review, we outline how distinct neuronal cell identities are established in response to spatial and temporal patterning systems, and outline novel experimental approaches to study the emergence and function of neuronal diversity in the spinal cord.
脊椎动物的脊髓由多种功能不同的神经元细胞类型组成，这些细胞类型排列在特定的位置上。在发育过程中，这些不同类型的神经元由转录上不同的神经祖细胞分化而来，这些神经祖细胞沿着胚胎脊髓的背腹和前后轴排列在离散的区域中。这种组织的形成是对位于基因调控网络上游的形态发生梯度的反应，该网络的结构决定了基因表达的空间和时间模式。近年来，在破译决定不同祖细胞和神经元细胞特性的调控网络方面取得了重大进展。在这篇综述中，我们概述了不同的神经元细胞特性是如何响应空间和时间模式系统而建立的，并概述了研究脊髓中神经元多样性的出现和功能的新实验方法。
